Hello, My Name is Ferb
by jrba95
Summary: It's Phineas and Ferb's first day of kindergarten and Ferb is worried about what people will think of his real name: FREEBORN! Story of how Ferb got his nickname. Cute one-shot.


A/N: This is my favorite cartoon ever! Here is my first writing about it. I thought a one-shot would be cute. Ferb's real name is Freeborn. Review please! I hope you enjoy

**Hello, My Name is Ferb**

"Freeborn, wake up! It's time for school!" Freeborn's eyes snapped open. The glow in the dark stars on the ceiling above his head approached and withdrew like a kaleidoscope as his new brother bounced on his bed.

"Wake up! Wake up! I know what we are going to do today," Phineas chirped as he hopped circles around Freeborn's head. Freeborn winced and pushed himself up on his elbows. This was his seventh day in his new bed in his new house with his new brother, Phineas. The odd, American, red head was rather talkative for Freeborn's taste. Every day since Phineas' mum and his dad got married a week ago, the red headed boy's mouth had been running like a car motor: "Freeborn, I can't wait for school to start! Freeborn, I can't wait for you to meet my friends Buford and Irving and Django! Freeborn, during playtime we should build a giant block tower; maybe we could make a whole new classroom out of blocks!"

A high pitched squeal pierced Phineas' persistent blabbering. Freeborn rubbed his weary eyes and Phineas quieted. Candace Flynn's outraged form filled the boy's doorway. Her hands were placed pointedly on her hips and her face was crumpled in an astonished glare! She pointed an accusing finger at Phineas as she shrieked, "You're not supposed to jump on the bed, Phineas! I'M TELLING MOM!" Candace sped from their room faster than their dog Bucky could sprint towards a juicy tennis ball.

Phineas shrugged his shoulders and slid off of his brother's bed. He cast an encouraging look at the sleepy Freeborn. "We'll have loads of fun at Kindergarten, Freeborn," he said with a giddy giggle. With that, he skipped off out of the door, following the aroma of syrupy waffles like a bread crumb trail.

With a heavy groan, Freeborn collapsed back on his pillow and shielded his eyes with the sheet. _I don't want to go to school! I don't want to go to school_, he thought with increasing despair. He had gone to preschool in England, before he and his Dad had moved here last spring. He didn't even talk much then, but the children there knew him for years and expected as much. The children there sounded the same way he did; what if the children here made fun of him? What if they made fun of his name? Even in England kids his age thought his name was hilarious. He was doomed!

"Mom! Mom! He was jumping on the bed. I knoooow he was!"

Linda sighed. "Candace. Phineas isn't even in this room. How about you go eat breakfast?"

Candace roared in frustration and stomped down the stairs. Freeborn peeked an eye above his covers to watch her leave. Linda was still standing in the doorway, shaking her head fondly after her daughter. She entered the messy boys' room with a sigh. Freeborn watched her precariously as she bent over make Phineas' bed. She loftily hummed a familiar Love Händel tune, but stopped when she spotted a squirming lump in Freeborn's bed.

"Hmm," she mused with a sly grin. "I wonder if there's some monster squirming around in Freeborn's bed! Lemme' check it out." Freeborn's stomach dropped, dreading his discovery. Linda crept around to the foot of the bed and lifted up the sheet high enough to see two tiny feet quickly recoil from the cold air.

"Aha!" she exclaimed, "A foot monster!" Linda laughed as she snaked her hand underneath the sheet and tickled the palm of a little foot. A yelp of surprise erupted from Freeborn's mouth and squirmed away from his step-mother's touch. He scrambled to the head of the bed and held his knees up to his chin, defensively. His eyes met her's in an analytical duel.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," Linda said in a sing-song voice. She put out a hand for the jumpy child to clasp, but he didn't move. "It's time for breakfast, Freeborn. How about you go eat, and I'll lay out your favorite purple overalls for you to wear?"

The boy's brow furrowed in suspicion and shook his head defiantly. Linda smiled. She had seen this behavior from Candace on her first day of kindergarten. It was strange how cautious little children could be before meeting their peers. She scooted closer to Freeborn, a trusting smile on her face.

"Are you worried about your first day of school, honey?" she asked in an understanding voice.

Freeborn shook his head again and pulled his blanket over his head to shield himself from the scary world. He liked Linda an awful lot, but he wouldn't trust anyone who was going to force him to go somewhere where everyone would laugh at him. If only his dad didn't have to go into work early that morning! He would be on his side!

"You know," Linda cooed, "Phineas will take good care of you in the new school. You won't get lost, and you'll meet new kids to play with. Doesn't that sound fun?"

Freeborn tossed the blanket off of his head and shook his head fervently. _Why won't she just leave me alone,_ he thought angrily.

With a puzzled look Linda scrutinized Freeborn, searching for any break in his defenses that would get him out of the bed. She was just about to run out of options when Phineas came leaping into the room and onto his brother's bed. "C'mon Freeborn! It's time for school; I want you to meet all of my friends!"

Freeborn groaned. But then his stomach began to grumble as the sweet aroma of breakfast was wafted into the room. He looked seriously into Phineas' eyes. They were friendly and sincere; Freeborn had no dilemma about trusting the boy who had made his transition into this different planet called the United States so much easier. _If Phineas is friends with them_, he thought hesitantly_, then they shouldn't be too bad. _Slowly, as if he were regretting his decision with every inch he moved, he slid out of bed and followed his brother down stairs.

"…and then maybe we could make the water fountains like a gardening hose and put one on every desk so no one will have to get up to get a drink of water! Oh! Oh! Oh! Maybe we should dig for dinosaurs in play ground during recess. Did you know Freeborn, that there were once dinosaurs that lived there? I read in a book that they lived there four-gazillion years ago!"

Freeborn winced as he tried to process the hundreds of words that Phineas had said in the past few minutes alone. Even though Dad said they were signed up for the bus, Linda had wanted to drive them to school on their first day. From the moment they were strapped into their seats, Phineas had been raving about all the possibilities the first day of school contained for them. Freeborn was jealous of Phineas' enthusiasm.

"Moooom? Are we there yet?" Candace piped from the middle of her two brothers in the back seat. Even she seemed ecstatic to reunite with the friends she hadn't seen since three months before.

"Candace," Linda chastised with an irritated voice. "We'll be there when you see me park the car. And that will be in about two minutes, so don't ask me again."

Two minutes! Freeborn's throat felt tight and his lungs collapsed in panic. In only two minutes he would be subjected to the torture of children his age! He commanded himself over and over to be indifferent to the taunts of his peers, but he couldn't help but imagine the monstrous comments that they might subject him to. How was a five year old supposed to survive the horrors of kindergarten?

He was about to open his mouth in protest, but Mom had already parked the door in front of Door K. _NOOOOO,_ he thought. Despair was crippling him like a paraplegic. He was petrified at the thought of abandoning the safety of the car.

After securing her own two children outside of the car, Linda reached in to liberate Freeborn from his car seat. _What's the point_, he mused as he fell limp in her arms. Linda chuckled at the small boy's reaction. "Awww, is my little broken marionette ready for kindergarten? C'mon Freeborn, it's not nap time yet."

Once he was set up right on his feet, he stood rigid and firm as he faced his prison. _I've lost_, he moaned in his head. Acknowledging his defeat, he pivoted on one foot like a foreign general sentenced to the firing squad and saluted his jurors. They looked back at him with confused smirks. Linda laid a loving hand on his shoulder and directed him as he marched towards his doom.

Screeching children scurried through the hallways flocking towards their long lost friends like flies to a light. The hallways were wide and well lit by the multitude of windows. To Freeborn, the throngs of people were harder to wade through than a brick wall. Phineas clasped his hand to avoid being drowned in the sea of older kids. Candace was adding the confusion by tugging her mother's hand to go to her classroom, but Linda insisted on getting the boys dropped off first.

Classroom 1 was leering intimidatingly at Freeborn as if it were the light at the end of the tunnel. Even the masses of children seemed to be making a pathway in its gait, leaving a straight path between Freeborn and his demise! Linda was directing him right towards it; what kind of a woman had his father married? Closer and closer they walked. Freeborn could have sworn that he saw flames and demonic faces behind the colorfully painted door. He felt tears of terror sting his eyes.

And then they stopped several miles before the door. When Linda's hand left his shoulder he gasped as if he had been released from the noose. He looked up and saw that Linda had paused to greet a Mexican woman who was holding the hand of a small, earnest girl with a pink bow. Frantically, Freeborn turned his head around and around, searching for an escape. The only exit in sight was the door from which they entered.

He flew down the corridor as fast as his stumpy little legs would carry him. There were less people in the hall now as people were heading towards their classes, so Freeborn had a straight shot to victory. He leapt up towards the door handle as if he were shooting a layup in a basketball game, and reached for his key to freedom! His small, pudgy fingers slid off of the slick bar. He hurdled himself into the air again and managed to force his hands to cling to the bar. Freeborn squirmed like a fish out of water to try to make the door swing back and open, but without even his tippy-toes on the ground he couldn't pull the door open an inch.

Exasperated, he collapsed to the ground and glared crossly at the stubborn door as if he wished to intimidate it enough to swing open. The door only mocked him in reply. Defeated, Freeborn crawled to the painted brick walls and buried his head in his hands. He, Freeborn Napoleon Fletcher, was defeated by a plexi-glass door. As if the kids in his class didn't have enough to tease him about! Usually he didn't care that people teased him about his name, his hair, or his silent disposition. But it was his friends back home were the ones who teased him about that! These kids wouldn't even get the chance to know him and he'd have no one! A tear of despair dripped off of his nose in defeat.

"Hey, Freeborn, what are you doing over here? Our classroom is over there." Freeborn looked up to see Phineas standing over him with a concerned look on his face. He crouched down on all fours and looked Freeborn straight in the face. "What's wrong?" he asked innocently.

Freeborn crinkled his nose and wiped his eyes. He inched further against the wall to avoid having to talk with his step-brother. Phineas refused to relent. He sat next to Freeborn and waited patiently for Freeborn to explain what was bothering him.

With a heavy sigh, Freeborn whispered, barely audible, "I don't want to go into the class. People will make fun of me and my name and stuff. People our age can be soooooo immature, you know."

Phineas shrugged, "I'm your age and I don't make fun of you. I went to pre-school with all of these people last year. They're all really nice."

"They know you," Freeborn sniffed simply.

This silenced Phineas. He scratched his chin like a pondering old man, and scrutinized the perplexed Freeborn. He pushed himself to his knees and shuffled closer to Freeborn. "So, you don't like your name, huh?" Freeborn nodded. "Well," Phineas continued, "It's your name isn't it? I'd figure that you can be called whatever you wanted."

Freeborn's eyebrows arched, clearly confused. Phineas smiled, marveling his intelligence, as he began to explain. "I read in a book once about something called acronyms. We can hide your name in another name. That way you'd still have your name…but it would be something insanely cool! D'ya get what I'm saying?"

Freeborn winced as Phineas went on talking at a rapid pace. "Let's see…the first letter can be _F _for _Freeborn. _There that takes care of your name. Ummmm, then what…"

"Ecstatically Radical Boy!" Freeborn declared. "My name is Freeborn Ecstatically Radical Boy!"

"Ferb, for short," Phineas added, impressed with his brother's creative ability. Ferb smiled and scrambled to his feet. Now, he looked at the classroom door without fear. He could see children running around, trailed by their parents and a kind looking woman with a stickered lanyard. Linda was squinting her eyes by the doorway as she searched for her two sons, and waved them over when she spotted them by the entrance. Phineas jumped to his feet and snatched Ferb's hand in his and dragged him towards the classroom.

The classroom was painted in a grass green with bugs painted on the wall. With all of the crazy children hopping about, Ferb could have sworn he was in the Amazon and was being preyed upon by ferocious tigers. Where once he would have shimmied away from the room faster than he had entered, Ferb lifted his arm high into the air and admired the shining machete he would use to defend himself in the dreaded land of elementary school.

Phineas tugged him out of his moment by the strap of his purple suspenders, and dragged him towards the brightly colored cubby holes. "Look Fre…I mean Ferb," Phineas gestured towards the girl in the pink bow they had seen earlier.

"Hey," the girl said shakily as she noticed the two boys walking towards her. She waved shyly. "My name is Isabella Garcia-Shapiro," she muttered. "I think you guys live across the street from me. I saw you two move in last week. Do you want to build blocks with me?"

"Sure," Phineas said animatedly. "My name is Phineas Flynn. This is my brother…"

"Ferb Fletcher," Ferb said with a smile.


End file.
